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Driving in Iceland- Westfjords Day 2

Day two of our Westfjords side trip started early, because we wanted to take advantage of the nice, sunny weather. Iceland weather can be very turbulent and unpredictable, and rain and clouds are common year round. Our first day was really nice, and the early morning was looking like this would be another great day for nature gawking.

Our first stop of the day was actually revisiting a stop from the previous day, Raudasandur. I was deeply frustrated with what happened the first day, and I figured we missed something critical somehow (though again, this was not specifically addressed in our guide books), and I really wanted to see this beach. So I went searching online for any sort of information that could clear up where we went wrong, and I finally found it in some blog posts.

Apparently what visitors are supposed to do to access the beach is park at the parking spots by the church (which we had passed on more than once the previous day), and then walk about 1.5 km down a nature path to access the beach. It was all so simple, but not immediately intuitive if you didn’t already know, that I wonder why guide books didn’t add more specific information.

In any case, it was early morning, so there was only one other car down by the church, and we started the easy, pleasant walk to the beach to get in our morning walk. The trail is through some beach grass and has a good view of the beach off in the distance, and the surrounding hills. We eventually reached where the beach is, though we weren’t really able to walk on the sand, because the tide was in. This is a beach that is really only walkable at low tide, because there are tidal inlets that prevent access to walking on the sand (unless you want to wade through ice cold water of unknown depth). So while we weren’t able to go out on the beach itself, we could see that the tide was going out, and the reddish sand was visible to us, and we could see how nice this beach would be to walk.

By the time we left Raudasandur, there were more tourists walking about, so we picked the right time to visit. We made our way back up the steep, windy gravel road to head off on our new itinerary. Our first stop was at the small town of Bildudalur. I had been hoping to visit the Icelandic Sea Monster Museum, because it just sounded like a fun place to visit. Alas, the museum is only open during the summer season, and the last day was literally the prior day. So no sea monsters for us, but we had plenty more beautiful nature to see.

Shortly after this town, the road turned from paved to gravel and would remain so, for most of the rest of the day (until we hit the town of Pingeyri). Our second day was our longest stretch of gravel road in the Westfjords, and for the MOST part, the road was reasonably good. Sure, it is gravel, but most of the road was grated to an extent, though there were places that were annoyingly rutted and potholed. Again, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to why the road is the way it is. I would drive for long stretches on well-graded gravel and then a series of potholes would emerge, sometimes on only one side of the road. It’s can be frustrating, but it’s just the price of admission for visiting the Westfjords.

The road in this part of the Westfjords generally snake along the topography of the fjords, with some occasional steep climbs to go over fjords and cut off driving time. My prior reading into self driving in the Westfjords talked about how the roads are often gravel, but also talked about the steep mountain roads you would have to climb. And that is true, FOR Iceland. The hills in the Westfjords are higher than many parts of the country (outside of the central Highlands), BUT “steep” is really grading on a curve. If you have any experience driving in any steep mountain ranges (e.g. the Rockies or Cascades), the roads aren’t THAT steep. We’re only talking a few thousand feet elevation. It was only annoying for me, because of that small car I chose didn’t have a lot of acceleration power, so I had to slowly make my way up the hills in low gear. But we got there nonetheless.

The highlight of our visit was an extended stop at the waterfall called Dynjandi. It is the tallest waterfall in the Westfjords, and one of the most famous waterfalls in the country. Of course this waterfall isn’t visited as widely as others, such as Gulfoss, because this waterfall is found deep in the Westfjords where the roads surrounding it for kilometers on end are gravel. This is NOT a waterfall you can visit on a day trip from Reykjavik, and in fact, in our three days in the Westfjords, we only saw one tour bus, because it is not as popular of a place to visit, and we were heading into the off season.

Dynjandi is also a waterfall that isn’t really accessible six-eight months of the year, because the road isn’t plowed in the winter, and snow tends to accumulate. But if you are in the area during the visiting season, I would consider this waterfall a “must do”, especially if you like waterfalls. It isn’t an exceptionally tall waterfall (only about 99 meters), but it has a pretty and unusual triangular shape, and is actually a series of several smaller waterfalls.

Since this is the highlight in this part of the Westfjords, it’s no surprise that this is where we saw the most people. You can get a good view of the waterfall(s) directly from the parking lot, but you can also walk up a trail to get closer views. If you are so inclined, you can even do the short, but somewhat steep hike to the base of the main falls and stand directly in the spray of the waterfall. I was feeling the hike a little bit, but it felt good to get out and exercise after driving for several hours by this point.

After this stop, we were basically through with touring for the day, and made our way to our hostel for the evening. This hostel, Korpuldaur HI Hostel, was on a farm tucked into a fjord. It was only a 20 minute drive from the “big city” of Isafjordur, but it was quiet and peaceful in a beautiful setting. We hit the gravel road a short drive from our hostel, and I wanted to get out and kiss the ground. Sweet, sweet pavement was a welcome sight to behold after bumping around on gravel all day.

Since the clouds were clearing up and there was little light pollution, I was hoping to see the Northern Lights. Auroras are visible in Iceland from approximately September- April (and even some other times during the year), so I was hopeful. Our hostel room had a window that directly overlooked the fjord, and I spent a fair amount of time looking out the window in the dark, and then standing outside, hoping to see some auroras. While I didn’t see any bright Northern Lights like you see in the pictures, I did see some fainter versions of the lights, so it fed my fix just a bit.

Overall, this was a really good day of great weather, beautiful nature, and peaceful near isolation, from the few tourists we encountered during the day. Our Westfjords trip was turning out to be a very pleasant success.